We open on grainy footage of a sad looking boy in a small room that looks like it’s been padded to be sound proof. We realize that there’s a camera in this room pointed at the boy. The camera is mounted inside the mouth of a mask hanging in the room, which looks terrifying. The boy holds up a pitiful looking doll and says “His name’s Jack. He’s a soldier. And he protects me. I didn’t mean to get you mad. Please? I’ll be a good boy. Please let me out.

We pan out and see meet FBI Agent Amanda Gilroy watching the feed. She works in the FBI’s Crimes Against Children Unit, located in College Park Maryland. She watches the video of the sad boy in the room and goes “(gasp) Peter!” She then stands up and walks dramatically to her supervisor Special Agent Katie Cole’s office. She says “Katie. I think Peter’s back.” We learn that Amanda was fishing in a pedophile chat room and was sent a video of this boy by a user named… Hugz. Katie tells Amanda to instant message Hugz “VN-HO: very nice, how old.” Hugz then sends Amanda a site that is an auction of Peter with a countdown clock and live video feed. Katie says: “Get me Aaron Hotchner at the BAU.”

It’s been 4 months since Fisher King. Cut to BAU headquarters where Reid shares some truly terrible statistics about child porn that I am not going to share here. Watch the episode if you want them! Gideon tells the team that a year ago Peter appeared on a bunch of pedophile chat websites, and the Crimes Against Children Unit led a massive manhunt for Peter, which ultimately failed. We also learn that Special Agent Katie Cole is former BAU.

Katie shows up in Quantico and informs the BAU that they’re coming to work for her. She states the website hosting the auctions is being routed through a serve in Belarus, so they can’t track where it’s actually coming from. But the video her agent received of Peter was sent on a server from a web hosting company in Cleveland Ohio. So the team are headed there. Elle shows up and pleads with Hotch to be let back on the team, even though she hasn’t been cleared by a doctor yet. Hotch tells her that she can’t be out in the field, but she can go with Reid to the Crimes Against Children unit. Also she has a haircut and bangs.

On the BAU jet Katie fills Hotch, Morgan and Gideon in on some of the tactics the agents in her unit use to find pedophiles. Sometimes they pretend to be pedophiles, sometimes to children. Morgan asks why they can’t just profile language used by the unsub in the chat room. And Katie says: “It doesn’t work that way with internet talk.” Katie also tells them that pedophiles are super secretive and have a very tight knit circle, so it’s hard to infiltrate.

The jet experiences turbulence and Katie gets nervous. Gideon says “Fear of flying? Linked to lengthy, deep-rooted issues of control.” Hahahaha that’s meee. But also- writer Simon Mirren is like: “Original BAU profiler. But she’s a woman, so she must have a flaw when we meet her so we’re not afraid.” Also wanna point out that we are recording two Mirren episodes today because he also did secrets and lies!

Katie teaches us some internet slang- “lol” laughing out loud, “IMO” in my opinion, “FTF” face to face.

PEDOPHILES

- Two categories: Situational and preferential

- Situational offenders rarely seek out children, but will take advantage of a situation when presented with it.

- Preferential offenders actively target children by age group, hair color and will seek out jobs which give them as much access to children as possible.

- Preferential offenders use the internet to contact children and find, locate, and set a meeting

Cut to Online Listing Service in Cleveland Ohio. It is a super unprofessional operation run by Dan Ash, who is a literal child. The BAU has a warrant and gains access to Online Listing Service’s chat room database. Dan Ash says: “This is so typical. You feds just can’t help yourselves. You gotta pollute the truest form of free expression ever invented.” Katie tells Morgan to log into one of the chat rooms and pretend to be a 12 year old girl named Suzy. We see some of the other usernames in the chatroom- and one is “cougar” and one is “begme”.

Garcia finds Hugz using his payment method through the pedophile website?? His name is Graham Rose, and Garcia finds that he used the same card on the pedophile site to also pay for a web domain, which is a live stream of another child being held. The BAU storms Graham’s house. They hurry upstairs where they hear loud music and find… not a child but Daryl Sabara from Spy Kids?????? He’s running a livestream where he is pretending to be tied up and is actually just doing like a striptease. We see the livestream where all the users are logging out and their names are: NYsockit2ya, cougar, Hairh8r, tataluv, corky, begme, and PYT. We learn that Graham Rose is Kevin (Daryl Sabara’s father).

We learn that Garham Rose has been in jail for the past eight months, and Kevin has just been living in the house by himself? He is username HUGZ. Basically running an OnlyFans account for money. Morgan says “Just like a street hustler”. Kevin uploading the video of Peter to the livestream, but the FBI knows that he didn’t create the video himself. Kevin refuses to give the BAU access to his chat room files. Morgan says: “Kevin this is prostitution” and Kevin says: “But I’m a minor, I don’t even know what I’m doing. Plus I never leave this room, so no one, no one ever touches me.” Morgan notices healed scars on Kevin’s body and realizes that Kevin was abused by his father. Gideon and Hotch profile Kevin, and convince him to help Peter. He logs into the server that backsup all his transcripts and tell the BAU that the screen name of the user they’re looking for is “Mehtevas”.

Cut to Peter talking to his stupid doll.

Reid and Elle meet Amanda Gilroy at Crimes Against Children Headquarters. The three of them analyze Peter’s video to try to figure out where Peter is being held. There are no doors or windows, but Peter seems to have food and access to a toilet. Elle says: “It’s like a ship in a bottle. He built the room around the boy.” Garcia notices that Peter is wearing a Tadpole shirt (I guess like Boyscouts but forest related). And JJ notices a unit number of the shirt.

Katie asks Kevin to ask Mehtevas for a FTF interview. Kevin is super nervous, but the BAU assures him that they will be standing by. We cut to a quick shot of Mehtevas listening to piano music and sipping tea. He’s an older guy with a wedding ring. Mehtevas asks Kevin to meet him outside of an elementary school. Reid and Elle are nearby so they stake the place out. Mehtevas finds Kevin and starts talking to him. He introduces himself as Hayden Rawlings. Hotch, Gideon and Morgan show up and arrests him. We learn that he is the principle of the elementary school!! Elle and Reid show up after the fact and search Rawling’s office.

Elle and Reid discover that Rawlings has a doctorate in child psychology. Rawlings computer is not at his desk. Reid discovers that one of the drawers in Rawling’s room is locked. Elle picks the lock. Reid says: “Did they teach you that in FBI school?” Elle says: “No they taught me that in Brooklyn.” They find the computer in the drawer. Rawlings computer is locked and Reid uses deduction skills to determine what the password is. Rawlings tells Gideon that he had the video of Peter because he wanted to save him, he tells Giden that he wants to “save them”. Which is Mehtevas backwards, which is the password.

So I guess Rawling is not the unsub. Just a piece of shit. Cool shot of- instead of showing us child porn (thank you) we see images of the child porn reflected in Rawling’s glasses. Rawling says that he bid $8k for Peter, he’s the high bidder. The BAU wants information on the unsub, Rawlings says he only knows that the unsub’s username is Manchild. He tells them that the code is “butterfly”. HOWEVER, the news crews break news about the investigation, and Manchild learns about what is going on and shuts the feed down.

JJ asks press to lie on behalf of the BAU and place them in a different locale. Manchild puts the livestream back on.The team follows Garcia’s lead about the tadpole shirt. The unit number on the shirt is located in Mount Pleasant, so they head there. The tadpolls are associated with a church. They meet with Rev Jackson Harris who tells them that the group disbanded 6 months ago, before the Rev took over. The Rev gives them a photo of the tadpolls, and they learn that the boy’s name is Charlie Sparks. Charlie was also enrolled in school for the second grade, but not for the third.

Cut to the unsub Manchild. We learn that he had Charlie boarded up in a wall inside his house. The auction ends. The unsubs behavior changed a year ago, before Charlie was enrolled in the tadpolls and going to school. Then, all of a sudden, he’s locked up inside a wall. Gideon deduces that the unsub’s behavior with Charlie changed because he was afraid, meaning that a year ago when Katie was on the case, she spooked him. The BAU realizes the unsub is Michael Earlson.

The BAU catches Earlson in his car about to drive off with Peter/Charlie locked up in his trunk. The BAU arrest Earlson. We learn late that the Peter/Charlie is actually named Dustin Powers and Earlson abducted him in Newark NJ when he was one. However, Powers’ mother is on her way! Hotch has the audacity to tell Katie that she seems stressed and maybe she should quit? And she like, hell no.

We learn that Peter/CharlieDustin’s mother is Jackie Powers. Get it. Soldier Jack? Jack? Jackie? Get it?

Rating Criteria

Criminal/Serial Killer: 10/20
Character development/ character arcs: 7/20
Forensics/Context: 12/20
Script writing: 10/20
Background characters: 18/20

Overall: 57/100

S2E2 - “P911”

S2E3 - “The Perfect Storm”

S2E1 - “The Fisher King Part 2”